


Moonrise

by Kendrene



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alpha!Lexa, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/F, Feral Behavior, Full Moon, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Memory Loss, Moon Cycles, Omega!Clarke, Oral Sex, Temporary, Vaginal Fingering, feral omega
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-02-24 03:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13204764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: Clarke was restless.Lexa could tell by the way her mate puttered around their rooms, straightening things that didn’t need to be straightened, or clicking her tongue disapprovingly at imaginary traces of dust.This morose dance had gone on for a few hours now, Clarke flitting from one thing to the next in ever increasing anxiousness while Lexa drafted lists of things she needed to discuss with the ambassadors, occasionally answering a knock at the door and poking her head out to receive a report.ORClarke and Lexa are mated, but everytime there is a full moon and her heat hits, Clarke loses all control. For months Lexa had to watch her mate chained to a wall so that she wouldn't hurt anyone in her frenzy, but now she's had enough.Heda has a plan to help her mate find her way back to herself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always please heed the tags before reading. I wanted to do something a bit different with this one, and I hope I managed. I treasure your kudos and comments greatly. 
> 
> Happy reading.
> 
> \- Dren

Clarke was restless.

Lexa could tell by the way her mate puttered around their rooms, straightening things that didn’t need to be straightened, or clicking her tongue disapprovingly at imaginary traces of dust. 

This morose dance had gone on for a few hours now, Clarke flitting from one thing to the next in ever increasing anxiousness while Lexa drafted lists of things she needed to discuss with the ambassadors, occasionally answering a knock at the door and poking her head out to receive a report. 

She sighed quietly, rubbing at the aching spot on her forehead where a headache had begun to build. The Day of Spirits was only two sunrises away, and after that she and Clarke both would be faced with an onslaught of meetings. All the clans wanted to be heard - as was their right - and the time of the year in which the souls of the departed were appeased with feasts and sacrifices was widely regarded as a the most favorable moment to solve disputes. 

Putting down the map she’d been half heartedly studying for the past hour, Lexa rose and stretched, eyes trailing Clarke’s progress through the room. Her mate’s uneasiness thickened the air, and Lexa felt as if she was standing in the middle of a forest fire and choking on the smoke. 

She watched Clarke walk out into the balcony and followed, careful to keep her steps quiet. The crisp autumn air hitting her lungs was a welcome reprieve from the stuffiness of their apartments.

Outside the sky was a riot of rich reds and indigo, puffy clouds sailing through like ships as the wind picked up. The sun had started its descent to dusk, and Lexa fancied she could almost taste the day’s imminent demise, like a blossoming of blood coating her tongue. 

“It’s almost time.” Clarke murmured without turning. Evidently Heda hadn’t been as sneaky as she thought, or perhaps after more than a year together, Clarke just knew her well.

Lexa didn’t answer, not immediately, her attentive gaze taking in the way Clarke’s fingers clutched at the balcony’s railing. Her lover’s hands were shaking slightly, even as they tightened around the rough-cut stone, her hold so desperate that her knuckles were bleached white from it.

Her mate’s fear was a bitter taste that soured Lexa’s mouth as if she’d bitten into a piece of rotten meat. She stepped closer, arms winding around Clarke’s waist with assured familiarity, and she pressed the entire length of her body against her mate’s back. 

“ _ Klark _ …”

She nuzzled into her Omega’s cheek, the tip of her nose following the flexing line of Clarke’s jaw. 

“You need to bring me downstairs and chain me up, Lexa. I feel it coming.” 

Lexa could too when up this close. The same metallic tang that had prickled at her tongue when she had watched the sky, but stronger. Redolent with things that existed only in the dark hours of the night and ripe with promises.

Promises that this time Heda intended to see fulfilled.

“Your heat.” She stated evenly, although there was no need to. But saying the words out loud helped crystallize her decision, reinforce the thoughts she’d secretly been pondering all day. No matter what Clarke said, this time she would not be swayed.

Clarke let out a hiccup, her body tense with the effort of keeping a fearful sob inside her throat. “It’s coming, Lexa.” The Omega twisted in her arms and buried her face against her shoulder. “Take me underground,  _ please _ . Before the moon rises.”

Lexa’s heart clenched. She couldn’t understand Clarke’s fear - no Alpha really could - but she remembered the first time heats and ruts had stricken among the Sky People. Perhaps because they had been severed from their ties to nature by a life in space, and bound themselves with medicine that dulled their instincts, when their supplies had run out they had gone up in flames. 

Nature had awoken within them with a vengeance, and a great many pups had been born in the wake of that first cycle - a good thing since a few of their Alphas had found early way into the ground. 

And Clarke…

Lexa had gotten a fragmented account out of her mate - after weeks of gentle, careful prodding. Clarke had been afraid of what was happening both to her people and her own body, and she had run. 

Alone and scared she had plunged headfirst into the woods around Arkadia, and there without an Alpha to guide her and reassure her, she succumbed to her Omega. 

_ Irata,  _ Anya had called her after she had found her and dragged her to Polis - bound, and gagged, trussed like a lamb ready for slaughter. Lexa had read that word before, in scrolls held deep within the Tower’s archives, but she’d never seen a feral Omega in the flesh. 

What had stayed with her the most from that day had been Anya’s eyes. The usually stoic General had looked at Clarke with a mixture of sadness and regret, even as her voice carried - dispassionate and full of finality - around the throne room.

_ Put her down _ . Anya had said 

_ It is a mercy _ .

Clarke’s nails, scraping futilely against the front of her shirt, brought her back to the present.

“I will not do that to you. Not anymore.” She put a hand under Clarke’s chin, forcing her to meet her eyes. The Omega wore a stricken expression, caught between surprise and mounting fear. Her eyes had opened as wide as they could go, their vivid cornflower blue watered down with unshed tears, and her lips trembled visibly.

She’d looked this fragile only once - only after Lexa had borne her to the floor as she clawed at her arms and spat in her face, more animal than woman. The Commander hadn’t flinched, although she quite clearly remembered the sheen of cold, nervous sweat coating her in ice as they struggled, her Alpha pheromones thickening the air to the point Anya had looked ready to retch all over the floor. 

She’d held Clarke down, with little regard for the bruises she was inflicting in the process, breaking her defiance like a parent would break a child’s willfulness upon their knees. At some point Clarke had stared right into her eyes the same way she did now, struggle leaking out of her as water from a punctured goatskin, and Lexa had bitten into her neck, ruining the curve of her throat with snapping teeth.

Anya had been too shocked to speak, while Titus had talked plenty. And yet, none of his prophecies of doom had come to pass, Heda’s fame (and the fear it instilled) only increased by the fact she’d tamed and mated a feral Omega.

The aftermath of such an unconventional mating, the two of them were still dealing with.

“I can no longer bear to see you in chains when your heat comes around,  _ Klark _ .” Lexa made sure to keep her tone gentle, hand squeezing the nape of Clarke’s neck firmly at the same time. The gesture seemed to ground the Omega, and her hands stilled on the front of her shirt, simply clutching for support.

“You know…” Clarke swallowed thickly then buried her face in the crook of Lexa’s neck as if to hide her shame, “you know that’s when I lose control. I could injure you,” she started shaking again, “kill you even.”

Lexa’s fingers kneaded the taut muscles of Clarke’s neck until she felt the Omega relax further into her. She pulled her mate close, free arm snaking around her waist, and rumbled soothingly.

“Do you trust me?” 

There was a pause, the wind whistling across the balcony as loud as the screams of a banshee. 

“With my life.” Clarke’s cheeks were damp, but her voice had regained some of its usual strength. Lexa could taste the truth of her words, the unshakable faith Clarke had in her a living thing that turned the bond they shared to forged steel.

Of course, it hadn’t always been like that.

“Then believe me when I say I will let nothing bad happen to either of us tonight.” 

Clarke simply turned into her arms, and together they witnessed the last rays of sunset fire to the treetops, and paint the mountains beyond Polis’ walls in blood. 

“You better have a plan then,  _ Heda _ .” Clarke’s voice grew strained as she talked, a hard edge entering her tone. She went rigid and Lexa tightened her arms around her, dipping her head forward and closing her mouth around the puckered scar on the side of the Omega’s neck. 

Clarke’s skin was already warmer than it had been moments before, yet Lexa could hear her teeth chattering. The heat fever had already begun to ransack Clarke’s body, a veil as scarlet as the sunset before their eyes settling around her. 

Lexa worried the mating bite with her teeth, careful not to break skin - not yet - and pressed her hands flat against Clarke’s belly.

Muscles writhed under her touch as the first cramps hit, causing Clarke to double over violently, a string of curses falling from her gasping mouth. If not for Lexa’s arms around her she’d have collapsed face-first on the concrete.

“It’s too late now, anyway.” Lexa heard her mutter, “it’s com-” Her words cut off abruptly, and morphed into an anguished scream that the wind mercifully ripped away from them. 

The sun completed its descent - Lexa imagined she heard it crash among the trees - and the moon took its place. It rose in the sky, silver like the coins people used to pay for things in older times, its light gaining strength as the heavens around it changed from blue to black. 

Clarke was motionless in her embrace, slumped forwards perhaps fainted or asleep, and Lexa took the chance to gather her into her arms and bring her back inside. 

There was a noise at the door, the loud scraping of metal against wood and Lexa nodded to herself. She’d instructed the guards to lock them inside, appointing Anya as squad leader for the night to make sure that - no matter what they thought was happening in the room - nobody would try to come inside. 

Her General had muttered about her foolishness, but Lexa had been her  _ seken  _ before becoming  _ Heda _ , and Anya was well acquainted with her stubborness. It helped perhaps that she’d been there to witness the way the Commander had handled a frenzied Clarke, and the look Lexa had given her, daring her to speak against her orders, had been enough to silence any remaining reservations.

She laid Clarke down on the bed they shared only sometimes, wishing that things between them could have started in an easier way. The Omega muttered and tossed, but her eyes remained closed and Lexa heaved a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t too bad. Not yet.

After that she worked quickly, rekindling the fire and using a pair of long metal pincers to pick up coals as soon as they began to glow a deep cherry red. She transferred them into a box filled up with sand and brought them to the adjoining room where a metal bathtub had been filled with water by her handmaidens while she and Clarke had been on the balcony.

Carefully Lexa slotted the box into a space left under the tub for just that purpose, knowing that it wouldn’t take too long for the coals to heat up the metal and the water within.

Hurrying back to the bedroom, she found Clarke sitting up, back so straight that the absurd fear the Omega’s spine would shatter under the strain took up the space between her lungs. 

It threatened to choke her, but Lexa pushed it down with a snarl, aware that showing weakness could be her undoing. 

The fire blazing merrily in the stone hearth suffused the room in a soft orange glow that dripped like wax along the walls. Lexa carefully inched closer to the bed, the scuffling of her boots against the floor barely audible. It was enough however to make Clarke raise her head, and the change that had come over her features, robbed Lexa of breath as it always did. 

There was something savagely beautiful about Clarke as all sense of self abandoned her. It was like staring into the eyes of a wild beast, or admiring the forbidding side of a mountain before the climb. Her lips were peeled back, teeth that Lexa knew could hurt snapping at the empty air as the eyes above them narrowed. 

And Clarke’s eyes were the most wondrous thing, sparks of orange that echoed the firelight burning deep within the blue. Lexa stared into them as she always did when a heat came over her mate, and her mind plummeted towards epochs so remote the thought of their existence made her bones ache. Galaxies were born within Clarke’s irises, and - whenever she blinked - stars winked out and died.

They stared at each other for a time, Clarke not really seeing her any longer, then Lexa slowly advanced towards the bed, steps slow and hands kept a bit apart from her sides, as open and non threatening as she who had been bred for war could make herself. 

Clarke simply watched her, and Lexa began to hope she’d make it to the bed without the Omega reacting. She almost didn’t dare to breathe for fear of startling her, and wished her heart would not resound so loud inside her ears. 

Still, when Clarke flew off the bed, fingers curled into a parody of claws and lips pulled back into a snarl, Lexa was ready. 

She shifted her weight on the balls of her feet without thought, legs flexing slightly, and her own hands shot out grabbing Clarke by her wrists. 

They grappled, the Omega pushing so hard against her hold to try and scratch her face that the tendons on the back of Lexa’s hands stood out like ropes. Clarke’s face was a distorted mask of fury, foam gathering at the corners of her mouth. It dripped down her chin flecked with blood from a cut her own teeth had opened on her bottom lip, accompanied by a series of strangled growls. 

Lexa tightened her hold and  _ pulled _ , using Clarke’s own momentum to turn her around and trap her in her arms. They ended up the same way as on the balcony, with her front pressed into the Omega’s back. But this time she brutally forced Clarke’s arms into a crossed position and then heaved, picking her off the floor with a grunt. 

Her back arched, muscles straining with the effort, and step by agonizing step she started for the bathroom. It was only a short walk, but by the time Lexa got to their destination she felt like she’d walked to the Dead Zone and back three times. 

Clarke wriggled in her arms, feet kicking the empty air in front of them as she tried to twist free. Her teeth clicked loudly around nothing, and the snarls erupting from her throat had grown if possible even more angry. Lexa was reminded of the stories her mother used to tell her when she was still a child afraid of what lurked in the dark, before she was brought to Polis to train as a warrior under Anya. There were creatures - her mother had said - that haunted open fields at night under the guise of beautiful women. But if someone was to take a closer look, or foolishly answer their calls, they’d find themselves torn limb from limb as these nightly apparitions were not girls, but evil spirits that thirsted for human blood. 

_ Wraiths _ her mother had whispered before snuffing out the candle at her bedside - who incidentally happened to devour disobedient children that left the safety of their blankets when they weren’t supposed to. 

A dry chuckle almost left her lips, but this was no laughing matter. Her mouth curled around the sound as she swallowed it back and, as her arms burned threatening to give way under Clarke’s fury, she hoisted the Omega over the side of the tub and dumped her in the water clothes and all.

She followed suit, not caring about the mess their combined thrashing was spilling on the floor. The water was hot enough to give Clarke pause and make her yelp, a sentiment Lexa echoed with an hiss of her own, her clothes scant protection against its scalding embrace. 

She used surprise to her advantage, arms going around the sputtering Omega again, and pulling her to sit between her legs. If Lexa didn’t know from the experience of past heats that Clarke’s mind was completely devoid of reason in that moment, she would have said her mate sounded indignant.

The Omega kicked ineffectively at the sides of the tub, fists battering the metal until her knuckles were torn and bloody. Finally Lexa managed to trap her arms as well, leaving her  to twist her head from side to side, mouth open as she frantically looked for any part of Lexa close enough to bite. 

It took some time, but finally Clarke’s movements slowed until the Omega almost stilled, just jerking a little whenever she got a bit of breath back. The water had cooled to the point of being pleasantly warm and - as Lexa had hoped - the warmth worked in her favor. Clarke’s tense body gradually slackened, the cramps seizing her muscles few and far between. Her mate’s head was lowered, and for a time the only sound was that of her harsh pants breaking the surface of the water. Then her breathing also slowed as if she was again bordering towards unconsciousness and that was when Lexa set herself to the task of making Clarke remember herself. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa retraces her history with Clarke in the hopes the Omega will regain her memory and defeat the madness brought on by the heat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, heed the tags and happy reading.
> 
> \- Dren

“I remember the moment Anya threw you at my feet.” Lexa started - as it was logical to do - from the beginning. Her whisper broke the precarious silence that had descended over them, her voice or perhaps her words rousing the Omega from her stupor. Clarke twisted around in her arms again, snarls tumbling from her lips the same way boulders would fall down a slope. Small, hesitant sounds at first, like gravel pattering downhill, but heralding something far more deadly. 

And when the natural disaster broke, it was a violent thrashing agitating the water around them as if they were sitting in the midst of a miniature sea, and Lexa almost ended up capsized under the onslaught of Clarke’s fury. 

“I recall the ropes binding you at wrist and ankle.” She continued, the only sign that she was struggling to contain her mate, a laboured note layering her voice. “How they dug into your flesh and you pulled at them, trying to get free and get to me.” 

Clarke had pulled and tugged until her skin had parted, but the blood welling into the grooves caused by her bindings had left her indifferent. Her blue eyes had been sharp chips of ice entirely focused on Lexa’s own, stripping away each of the Commander’s layers until she’d felt like she was sitting on her throne entirely bare, her armor and warpaint no protection at all against a rage so primal that no human constructs could shield from it. 

And yet - trapped within the blue - Lexa had seen a girl desperately writhing, the entirety of her thoughts shrunk to the size of a fly ensconced in amber. Clarke had been caught inside the closing jaws of her own instincts, and in that moment Lexa had felt her spirit call with utter clarity.

“I wish that the first time I held you beneath me could have been different,  _ niron _ .”

Clarke’s answer was a growl, and with a rip of fabric she managed to tear one arm free, her nails catching on the back of Lexa’s wrists as she tried to restrain her. Pain flared across her skin, the Omega mindlessly digging a hold into her flesh, and Lexa knew she’d wear the scratches for days on top of all the bruises she could already feel throbbing along her ribs.

However she was pleased to note she’d chosen their battlefield wisely, the tub narrow enough that Clarke’s movements were limited. Lexa had read all the scrolls that she could find on how an  _ irata _ behaved to know that Clarke’s strength was greatly increased compared to that of any other Omega in heat. As always, and as useless as it was she pictured how things could have been if she had led the clans to approach the Sky People sooner. But perhaps nothing would have changed, Clarke’s people wholly unprepared to face the primal side that each and every one of them carried within. 

Finally Lexa managed to clamp her hand around Clarke’s flailing arm, fingers squeezing hard enough to get the Omega’s attention. 

Her mate tried to heave herself up, causing another set of waves to crash into the bathtub’s sides, and Lexa let a snarl of her own rip, loud enough that the room echoed with it. 

Clarke turned her head this way and that, neck tensing to the point her  tendons stood out like corded ropes ready to snap. Lexa saw an opening and pressed her open mouth to the mating bite that broke the perfect column of Clarke’s throat, teeth scraping lightly along the scar tissue and tongue following suit to lave at the raised skin. 

The gesture calmed Clarke under different circumstances, and Lexa hoped it’d help this time as well. 

Her mate’s skin tasted of the ocean’s brine, its saltiness exploding across Lexa’s tongue and reminding her of the first time she had bitten into Clarke’s neck. She would rather have preferred to mate in the privacy of her rooms - and after proper courting - instead what should have been an act of love had turned into a wrestling match on the throne room’s floor. There were times in which she wondered if she could have approached the matter differently, but she knew that if she’d hesitated Clarke wouldn’t be pressed into her chest, but long gone into the ground. 

“I knew we were meant to be even before my teeth tore into your skin.” She scattered gentle kisses along Clarke’s neck, and her lover trembled at the touch, her body caught in a violent tug-of-war between the urge to rend and tear the throat of her own Alpha and another far more pleasant instinct. 

Clarke had been maudlin and fearful after a mating forced on them by circumstances, and it had taken painstakingly long for her to even be in the same room as Lexa without the need to retreat into a corner. In the beginning Clarke would only look at her when she thought that Lexa was distracted, the deep blue that had caught her attention so thoroughly muted by the Omega’s fright to the same grey of open waters on foggy mornings.  

Lexa had given Clarke all the space her new mate seemed to require, even when it cost her and - especially because it hurt so much - she had known it was the right choice. Her every instinct demanded she reassure the Omega anyway that she was able but, since she was the source of Clarke’s disquiet, it would only have served to make matters worse. She had ordered that quarters be prepared for the Omega next to her own apartments, but she had sworn to herself that she would not enter them until Clarke invited her to.  

“Do you remember when you wouldn’t even look at me?” Lexa murmured softly against Clarke’s heated skin, tears from a pain not completely passed pricking her eyelids, “I would knock on your door at every meal, so that you would know there was food waiting for you just outside.” 

For a few days Clarke had touched nothing save water and Lexa had grown worried, fearing that the Omega was wasting away behind closed doors. She didn’t dare enter to check, even if her heart ached, her flesh crawling with worry as if mites were burrowing into her muscles. She knew that newly bonded mates needed to spend a lot of time together and Clarke’s absence at her side was like a gaping, bleeding wound that would fester if left untreated. 

And then one day she had gone back to check and the tray had been empty. After that Clarke had begun to eat - and from what she’d leave untouched Lexa had managed to guess at her tastes. 

Lexa had hoped that Clarke would let her in after that first step, but the Omega had not. The real bridge between them had come from the direction Lexa least expected.

The Natblidas had been the ones to finally bring Clarke to her.

It had been the laughter that had led Lexa to the discovery. She’d recognized the voice as Clarke’s even though the sound had been foreign to her ears. And when she’d come across the Omega’s door, finding it open, an irresistible curiosity had prompted her to look inside. 

“You had Aden sitting with you,” Lexa murmured into the nook of Clarke’s neck - the place where she was sure stars blinked awake before lighting up the sky, “and that was the first glimpse I got of the girl hiding under all that fear.”

Clarke had been in the middle of answering a question when she’d spotted Lexa on the doorstep. A frown had darkened her brow at the sight but before she’d had a chance to retreat behind her walls, Aden had called Heda inside with the childlike wonder of the unexpected friendship he had just made. 

Lexa had sat with them - a bit apart - and she’d listened on as Clarke falteringly resumed. 

At the mention of Aden’s name the Omega grew still in a way Lexa could not remember from all the other times she had tried to breach her feral state with words. 

She tilted her head and her growls ebbed away, morphing into low mutterings Lexa could almost understand. Her body quivered, taut like a drawn bow, teeth grinding so loudly Lexa could hear them crack like frozen sap within a tree, and she mentally prepared for another round of thrashing. But it didn’t come, Clarke slumping in her arms as if life itself was draining out of her. Her skin still burned, but her scent did no longer fill Lexa’s mind with red. 

It had mellowed out, the smoky layers ebbing into something softer, like a breath of cleaner air dispersing the embers of a forest fire. Lexa whispered her love against the taut canvas of Clarke’s skin, ignoring the dull ache spreading through her hands as she rubbed her mate’s forearms. 

She told herself the task of piecing Clarke  together was one only a God could manage, and yet she forced herself to keep believing. Lexa called to all the Spirits she could name for their assistance, eyes finding the window to trace the path of the rising moon. 

It hung fat and red and full,  just shy of zenith, and she knew that the moment it would shine the brightest would be the hardest for Clarke. 

This was but a reprieve, yet Lexa took advantage. She lapped softly at the apex of Clarke’s pulse, tasting the rabbiting throb of her blood trapped beneath the skin. Her incisors ached, the Alpha within her clamoring for her to bite and claim her mate. Lexa had not bitten to break skin since the mating, and she knew that doing so now would only serve to set them back to their painful beginning. 

She kicked the snarling beast clawing at her ribs back to the dark recesses of her heart and, as the moonlight extended phantom fingers across the water, tinting it in silver, her hands sought  Clarke’s wrists. 

As she had done during all her other heats, Clarke began to buck more violently than she had done before, except this time no silver coated chains secured her. She was restrained by manacles of flesh and bone and soon enough Lexa’s hands started to ache. 

Her arms tensed, tendons cracking ominously, Clarke’s strength as irresistible as an avalanche careening down a slope. 

Her body gave way and she cried out, the bones of her wrists grinding together as Clarke twisted in her arms, rising onto battered, bruising knees with a sharp flash of  teeth. 

She hovered above, terrible and wildly beautiful at the same time. Her pale face leered down, framed by hair of muted gold and she was as frightening and godlike as death itself. 

Lexa stared helpless, the lungs enshrined within her ribs turned to lumps of useless meat as she forgot the mechanism of breathing. She could already feel Clarke’s teeth sinking into her jugular, but Lexa would not choose another ending. 

To die in an attempt to subtract the one she’d come to love to the savagery of her instincts would be a worthy way to be uprooted from the ground indeed. 

But Clarke didn't attack her, instead rending bloody gouges into her own cheeks. 

“Le-ksa. “ Her choking sobs stabbed deeper than a blade. “Leksa!” She clamped her hands over her temples. 

This girl, this woman who had burned down from the heavens like the damned angels of old crumbled forward, bloody fingers seeking any place that she could hold in a chaotic dance that reeked of desperation. 

Without hesitation Lexa offered her chest as resting place and made herself into an offering. She gentled her edges becoming the safe harbor that Clarke needed, sore hands rising to wipe some of the blood from Clarke’s cheeks. 

Under the light of the moon her mate was otherworldly, a manifested miracle of crimson and pale gold, eyes glowing with a light that was no longer red and angry. 

Lexa glimpsed fragments of the moon, reflecting in Clarke’s irises among the ocean of her tears, and she hummed softly, hand cradling the back of her mate’s head. 

She guided Clarke to hide her face into the crook of her neck, her hums following the tune of her favorite childhood lullaby and the Omega nuzzled into her tiredly, the last shreds of her violent state dripping out of her like the water overflowing the tight confines of the bathtub. 

For a time the only sound was the combined beating of their hearts, taking their sweet time to quit their frenzied  gallop. 

Finally, just as Lexa’s eyes were growing heavy, her body full of ever growing aches, Clarke shook herself from the space she’d carved into the safety of her embrace. 

“Lexa.” For the first time since sunfall her eyes were clear. “the water’s growing cold.”

Lexa stared, the change so relieving and unexpected she could not do anything else and after one deep breath Clarke continued, her voice quivering with an undertone of shyness. 

“Take me to bed.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa and Clarke come ever closer to finally mating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this has been a long while coming. I hope you'll forgive the absence.
> 
> \- Dren

“Take me to bed.” 

The words echoed in her ears, and her spirits lifted. Hope made her heart beat faster, even though she knew she should banish such a feeling from her chest. 

But Lexa couldn’t. 

Hope had saved her more times than she could count, helped her climb back to her feet when - sputtered in mud and bleeding through countless cuts - she’d been about to admit defeat. And it had strengthened her resolve with each full moon, allowing her to climb the steps that led to the Tower’s windowless cells, where Clarke was chained during her heats.

Without hope, Lexa would be dead a hundred times over. So, although logic told her that she shouldn’t, the Alpha allowed her heart to race, the shadow of a smile tugging at her lips. 

They had been sitting within the narrow confines of the tub long enough that getting out of it was much more of a challenge than it normally would have.

Lexa hurt in places she hadn’t even known existed before tonight, and Clarke was in no better shape than her. Still, the outcome could have been far worse, with either of them severely injured or even dead. 

Instead, they had enough breath left beneath their bruised ribs to count their aches like blessings after Clarke’s heat was over. In a few months’ time, they’d marvel at what they’d gone through, the memory of it acquiring the hazy quality of a fever-induced dream as time went by. And perhaps - if the Gods were kind - this trial would become just one of the many stories they would share around the fire, to pups who were old enough to lead while the two of them had grown too grey to.

But right now the aches were real and her body felt the same way it did after a battle. War had taught her to grit her teeth and push through the pain until her men were taken care of to the last, and she would do the same now. They’d get through the night -  _ together  _ or not at all. 

Lexa turned her face away, hiding a sad smile. They had indeed gone to war, for something more important than honor or any amount of land. She and the Omega had battled for custody of Clarke’s soul and, despite appearances, the victor had not yet been declared.

“Can you stand?” 

Even talking hurt, her jaws tight with lingering tension.

Clarke pulled away from the crook of her neck and sat facing her, gaze lowered and chest heaving. Shoulders slumped and back bowed forward, she looked on the brink of collapse. Lexa tensed, ready to catch her. She had not gone through all this effort just to have her mate drown in the equivalent of an unusually deep puddle.

Clarke’s fingers drew lazy circles just below the surface of the water, and she gazed enthralled at what she could glean of her broken shadow. Little waves broke the silhouette apart, its shape never holding still, and the moonlight - which bounced weakly across the water’s surface - added to the illusion.

At the sound of Lexa’s voice, she raised her head, and it took all of her self-control to not reach out and wipe the streaks of fresh blood off Clarke’s face.

She bit the inside of her cheek bloody, her hands carefully splayed over the sides of the tub.The metal had grown cold to the touch, its chill seeping under her skin. Lexa tried and failed to suppress a shiver.

Tightening her hands around the edges of beaten metal, she followed her own question with example, and heaved herself up slowly, aware that Clarke was tracking her every movement with the weary look of a deer ready to bolt.

“I think so.” Her mate answered finally, tongue flicking out to wet lips fissured by her fever. Her voice was cracked and rusty as if, by being lost to her Omega for so long, she’d forgotten how it worked.

When she was sure that her legs would hold steady, Lexa extended a hand, holding her breath as she waited for Clarke’s reaction.

The Omega looked at her with eyes that held enough pain to last a hundred lifetimes, and Lexa’s heart ached in sympathy. She wished she could just close the gap, but things between them had never been easy.  

They had never reached the stage in which a hug and a comforting word could be given without a second thought, and Lexa wondered how long it’d take for them to get there. 

A part of her was scared they never would condemned by circumstances to dance around one another in endless circles.

It would be an untenable solution; to share the same space but never to touch, never to hold. Contemplating the possibility seared her heart with white-hot pain.

To her relief, Clarke’s fingers closed around her own, her mate throwing her other hand out to grasp the tub’s edge and help herself up.

Once they were both standing, lukewarm water lapping at their shins, Lexa made to pull her hand back, a surprised gasp leaving her lips when Clarke’s fingers tightened around her hand.

“Don’t.” Something similar to desperation flickered through her mate’s face. “Please?”

The plea was whispered almost too quietly to hear, and Clarke tore her eyes away the moment the words left her lips, cheeks flushed a violent shade.

“Alright,” Lexa replied just as quietly, thumb rubbing along the back of Clarke’s hand in a soothing motion. She could feel all the little scrapes and cuts the Omega had caused herself by hitting the tub’s metal sides during her frenzy and made a mental note to check outside her apartment’s doors once she had gotten Clarke safely back in the bedroom.

Had Anya followed her instructions to the letter, there would be food and medical supplies waiting for them.

The bathroom was silent, save for their breathing and the  _ plip-plop _ of the water that dripped from their clothes. Clarke resembled a pup who’d played in the rain despite having been told not to and Lexa knew she didn’t look much different. Her tunic was torn in several places, and what she managed to glimpse of the flesh beneath was purple-black with bruises. Every stitch she wore was soaked through, her clothes weighing her shoulders down as if she were draped in stone instead of linen and wool.

She hurt a thousand different ways, and her limbs felt leaden with fatigue. Lexa was cold as if she’d marched for miles under driving rain, and her mind went back to all the times she’d led her troops across the northern borders. Battle, Anya had taught her during training, was a heated business. Blood and bile and sweat were hot, but it only lasted until the fight was over. Afterwards came chills, and bone-crushing exhaustion; the one and same that made her shiver now. 

Clarke was not the only one who’d need Nyko’s herbs and poulticed linens.

“Do you still want me to take you to bed?” She inquired delicately when it became clear that Clarke would stand in icy water for the rest of the night if she didn’t take the lead.

“Yes.” Her mate paused and worried her lower lip, “I mean if you want to?” Her addition was punctuated by a sobbed whine, and she bared her neck expectantly, fingers shaking against Lexa’s own.

It was hard to reconcile the Omega showing her throat in submission with the one that had fought her tooth and nail in this same room, but now that the red fog which had obscured Clarke’s mind was lifted, it seemed she craved her mate’s reassurance.

Clarke needed to know that Lexa wanted her, and that the injuries the Alpha sported because of her would not be held against her as an act of disobedience.

_ Of course I want to. _

For months Lexa had desired to take Clarke into her bed for more than sleeping, but she had never pressed her mate, accepting the rare nights in which the Omega crawled under the blankets of her own volition like sacred miracles bestowed upon her. 

The Omega would come to her in the darkest part of the night, when the Tower was so quiet it was easy to imagine that only the two of them were left alive to roam its halls. After a few, tense stand-offs, the guards posted at Lexa’s door had learned to let Clarke through without making a fuss, and she crossed Lexa’s apartments so quietly that another, less trained warrior would fail to notice her. 

But not Heda. 

No matter how long she’d been asleep for, the moment Clarke’s shadow fell across the bed, Lexa bolted awake. She held still, trying to keep her breaths as steady and deep as possible while her heart thundered in her chest. Then, she waited. Some nights, her mate would slide underneath the pile of furs a moment later to snuggle as close to her as she dared. Other times, Clarke hovered above her for what felt like hours, her eyes so intent that Lexa felt the weight of her gaze, before joining her in bed. And, especially when the full moon was close, Clarke simply turned away and vanished back outside, just as silently as she had come. 

Those nights were the hardest to endure with the Omega close enough that Lexa felt her warmth like a caress against her cheek. But, emotionally, Clarke was leagues and leagues apart from her and, after she left, Lexa often buried her face in the pillows to cry. 

On those nights, with the light of the stars her only witness, Lexa entertained the thought of failure and grieved for the woman she had mated and would never get to know. 

As she helped Clarke out of the tub, Lexa couldn’t stop her legs from shaking at the enormity of it all. Unwilling to let the Omega stray from her side, she pulled Clarke close, exhaling in relief when her mate leaned into her.

She half-guided Clarke, half carried her into the bedroom, throwing a distracted look to the puddles forming in their wake. Later, once her mate was tucked safely under the pelts, and she’d finally claimed her, Lexa would clean away the signs of their fight so that her maidens didn’t have to. 

It was a private matter between them, one that undoubtedly would fill Clarke with shame once her mind was completely clear. Lexa’s handmaids were - for the most part - very discreet, but gossip always thrived inside the Tower, no matter how many times she’d tried to put a stop to it. In the end, she’d given up, her efforts best spent elsewhere Anya had said, but she would not have people speak ill of her mate. Most of the clans wouldn’t dare, but Sankru and Azgeda always looked for ways in which to hurt her, and Clarke had already been the subject of enough rumors as it was. 

Lexa’s spies had reported them all: some said Wanheda was a blood drinker much like the Reapers haunting the darkest parts of the woods, others were convinced she turned into an enormous wolf with the full moon, and that was why Lexa had to have her chained. 

“Wait here.” Lexa gently lowered Clarke to the bed; her mate sat on it stiffly, relief flashing through her face as she took her weight off her legs. Lexa had to resist the urge to join her, ridding them both of the wet clothes. 

She’d have to endure the discomfort just a little longer. 

“I’ll be only a moment.” She soothed before moving away. Clarke said nothing, nor did she move, but the further Lexa went from the bed, the more the Omega discomfort grew. 

Heda felt it, like an unpleasant smell she couldn’t quite name. It made her nose twitch and her eyes water. 

“Just a moment.” She called again, throwing a look she hoped would be reassuring over her shoulder. Clarke nodded, failing to look remotely convinced. She had slumped before, but now she sat straighter, leaning forward like a bloodhound as she tracked Lexa’s progress to the door.

Her hands fisted the pelts below her as if she was trying to keep herself from following, Lexa wanted to hurry up, but knew that it could be counterproductive. Clarke’s scent had changed again, and while the fact that all traces of her red rage seemed to have vanished was comforting, the wounded, fragile scent that filled her nostrils now was just as worrying. 

Clarke was at her most fragile, her trust something to be nurtured. One wrong move could send them back months. Lexa shuddered: the frenzied, slavering woman she’d pinned to the throne room floor was a pale if painful memory, and she wanted to keep things that way. 

As she reached the door, Clarke’s uneasiness peaked. It made the air heavy around them, and set Lexa’s teeth on edge. She had a vague memory of going through the same turmoil the day Anya had come to take her from her mother. 

Lexa hadn’t presented yet, but her blood already marked her as someone destined for greatness. Anya had come to her village other times but, even though she was not a stranger, her previous visits had been different. She’d come to trade, or select warriors to join Heda’s guard in the capital. The morning the famed General had come for her, Lexa had known at a glance something was not quite right. Instincts that training had not yet honed whispered the truth into her ears and she hid, the knowledge she would never again see her mother enough to break a child’s heart. 

She employed every trick she’d gleaned from the village trackers, wading a stream and masking her scent with grass and mud, but Anya had found her anyhow. Lexa had expected she’d be punished, yet the older Alpha simply sat a few feet away from her, humming a senseless tune under her breath until Lexa allowed her to get closer. 

Anya had pulled her onto her lap and wrapped her in the cloak she wore, using a threadbare corner to wipe away the tears on Lexa’s face, before taking her back to the village.

One hand on the door handle, Heda hummed the same wordless tune now, praying it would soothe Clarke’s spirit the same way it had soothed hers many moons before.

As mutable as the sea, her mate’s scent changed again, the pungent, almost acrid tones that had made Lexa’s throat itch a moment earlier watering down to nothing. 

When she finally ventured outside, the corridor was quiet.

Her guards, who usually stationed right next to her door, had moved to the halll’s far end, the metal of their pauldrons glinting in the torchlight as they moved. Lexa was not surprised to spot Anya among them: her General had questioned the plan until that very morning, and it was only logical she’d take the task of making sure they were not disturbed upon herself.

Besides, it was her only way to be close by should things go south.

Despite objecting to everything else, Anya had not mentioned her fears aloud, but Lexa knew the other Alpha had been worried. Outwardly her General radiated the self-assured calm that made her so reliable in battle, but Heda wasn’t fooled. Anya’s mocha eyes had betrayed nothing, but they’d lingered on her whenever the warrior thought Lexa wasn’t looking and – although her friend would die before admitting it – on Clarke.

Anya’s behavior towards the Omega had shifted as months rolled by. She’d gone from initial shock to acting as if Clarke did not exist, cautioning Lexa about the possibility her mate still may die despite all that she was doing. Then, as she watched Clarke be chained with each full moon and sometimes assisting Lexa in the process, she had settled for begrudging admiration.

She and Clarke could become friends, Lexa thought, if her mate survived the night unscathed.

If the sentries noticed her poking her head out of her apartments, they gave no outward sign. Lexa’s orders had been clear: they were not to approach unless called upon.

Just as she’d requested a wicker basket had been left next to the door, and Lexa didn’t have to look inside to know both medicine and food would be accounted for.

Without further delay she brought it inside, locking the door as she went. The only other key she’d entrusted to Anya, in case the General needed to force her way inside.

Clarke was much the way she’d left her, holding still despite the obvious discomfort she was in. Seeing that Lexa had come back, she perked up, relief flooding her face as her jaws unclenched.

“My brave girl.”

The words left Lexa’s lips before she had a chance to think them over, but Clarke didn’t seem to mind being addressed that way. Lexa would have to feed more wood to the dying fire, but even though the light was scarce, she easily spotted the blush tinting her mate’s cheek.

It dawned on her that they’d never shared moments so intimate. Even on those rare nights Clarke climbed into her bed, Lexa had to act as if her mate truly wasn’t there, too afraid she’d spook her away if she held her.

And, should the night end the way she had imagined it so many times, they’d grow even more intimate.

At that, a blush just as fierce as the one gracing Clarke’s cheeks, burned hers, and a whole different kind of heat shot down between her legs.

To hide it, Lexa set the wicker basket at Clarke’s feet and started to dig through its contents. The food – oilcloth-wrapped cheese, fruit and flatbread, plus a jar of honey as big as her two fists – she left in the basket for the time being. They certainly would have a use for it, experience having taught her that heats left Clarke famished, but for now she wanted to get her mate dry and tucked under the blankets, her bruises and scrapes tended to.

Clarke watched her work without commenting, curiosity and shyness waging war upon her face.

Soon enough Lexa had stoked the fire, its renew vigor somewhat drying her soaked clothes. It would not surprise her if both she and Clarke ended up nursing a cold, or worse a fever, in the coming days.

“Can I help you out of your clothes?” Clarke jumped and shot Lexa a startled look. “You’re soaking wet.” She tried to amend, realizing too late that the statement could be entirely taken the wrong way.

But Clarke was biting into her lower lip, and her shoulders shook as she tried to hold back a laugh. She failed, mirth gurgling out of her, crystalline and pure. 

Lexa had never heard her laugh that way before, not even when she had the Nightbloods gathered around her like chicks, eager to be fed her stories. 

It made her think that perhaps they  _ had _ a future within easy reach. It made her fight back tears she didn’t want to cry. Not yet at least, for Lexa knew that if she allowed herself that weakness she’d be unable to stop their flow for a long time. 

So she simply waited for Clarke’s laughter to subside, smiling when her mate had to wipe her eyes and catch her breath. 

“Okay. Yes, I mean, you can help.” Clarke blushed again, and dropped her gaze to her lap. Strands of golden hair slapped wetly across her face, hiding her embarrassment.  

Quiet returned between them, but it was the kind of well-worn, lived-in silence people that had spent a lot of time together shared. They were existing in each other’s spaces in a way they’d never managed to do before, and Lexa had to remind herself of the task at hand, lest she simply stare at Clarke till sunup. 

Assisting her mate out of her ruined clothing without staring was torture. Lexa did her best, but couldn’t help that - whenever Clarke was fighting with a button or a string - her eyes would wander to the parts of the Omega’s skin they had already exposed. 

She glimpsed soft curves she had desired to explore with hands and mouth for months, perfect stretches of skin just begging to be marked, but she couldn’t. Not yet. 

One other thing she could not avoid was that, whenever her knuckles unexpectedly brushed against Clarke’s skin, her breath hitched, catching in the back of her throat. Lexa wasn’t sure her mate was aware of the effect she was having on her but Clarke seemed too busy shivering to remark on it anyhow. 

A worried rumble spilled from her chest, and Lexa hastened, helping her out of the remainder of her clothes perhaps more unceremoniously than she would have liked to. Clarke didn’t protest; by the time they were done, she was hugging herself in search of warmth. What Lexa had touched of her body was icy, and she pulled the warmest, softest pelt she kept atop her bed around her mate’s shuddering form.

It came from a wolf she and Anya had killed the winter before Clarke’s people touched down on Trikru lands. The beast had been massive, and its fur completely white - which had made it very hard to spot among the piles of snow. The wolf killed several sheep and maimed a warrior before Lexa and Anya cornered it, and when it rushed them - eyes blazing and noiseless maw open wide - it had been like facing a ghost.

She wrapped the pelt around Clarke, tucking it so that her hands and face were left out, and thinking all the while that the candid white made the blue of her mate’s eyes shine brighter. 

Once the shivers had subsided, Lexa was free to look at the scratches on Clarke’s hands more closely. Her mate’s eyes never left her as she examined and cleaned the wounds, prompting her to handle Clarke as gently as if she were holding the most fragile glass. 

Much to her relief, most of the grazes were superficial, but bruising already darkened Clarke’s skin where her hands had fully connected with the metal tub. Lexa used the salve that Nyko had provided liberally, before wrapping clean linen around Clarke’s hands, so that her battered flesh would have a better chance to heal. 

She had spotted other bruising along her mate’s ribs, some of which she herself may have caused when they had fought but - while that’d require attention too - Lexa didn’t want to push Clarke’s trust too far too fast. 

“All done.” 

Letting Clarke’s hand go, Lexa stood, wincing when her knees popped from having crouched too long. 

“Lexa?” Clarke tilted her head, managing somehow to look sheepish and adorable at once. “Won’t you come under the blankets too?” She patted the empty back next to her, a certain boldness chasing off her shy demeanor. 

Gods. For months she’d waited for this very moment, and now she couldn’t move.

“Lexa? Please?”

It was the underlying fear she detected in Clarke’s voice that broke the deadlock. 

Heart beating so hard she felt she had to swallow it back down, Lexa put her fears aside, shed her clothes, and climbed onto the bed. 

 

**Author's Note:**

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